Gao is not a policy analyst; he has a rock-star goatee and long hair and made his name with pop songs and movies and judging “American Idol”-style shows. But he has lived off and on in California, so from time to time he fondly decodes American behavior to audiences on the video site Youku. In this case, he undertook to explain a few facts that baffle the Chinese public: that millions of Americans lack access to affordable health care; that multiple Presidents have come and gone pledging to do something about it; and that Obama succeeded in getting a bill through Congress, only to be accused of violating the Constitution.

After explaining some of his experiences as an immigrant in search of health care in California—Gao and his wife once went searching for an emergency room and found three pet hospitals before they got to one for humans—he sought to break the issue down into terms that newcomers might understand. He did so using a short Chinese cartoon, animated with “South Park”-style characters and titled “Obama’s Health-Care Reform War.” It begins with an image of a castle under a blue sky, and a narrator’s voice:

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful country. Legend had it that these people lived in peace and contentment, never worrying much about their livelihood. But that bright and shiny exterior concealed a surprising reality: “We don’t have universal health care!” One sixth of the country, fifty million people, have no insurance, spending their days anxious that some sudden illness will wrest away the good life.

It ends after explaining that some people don’t want to pay more to cover those who are insured, and a cartoon Obama, with tears on his cheeks, pleading, “American people, you are truly difficult to serve! What do you really want me to do?”

The farther away one stands from the Obamacare cases, the more curious they look against the portrait we usually imagine of ourselves. By now, America’s declining place in rankings of global health is so well known at home that it has lost its rhetorical punch, but it can be striking to notice how much other countries have done in the years that we have debated. Seven years ago, China’s beleaguered health-care system was the Wild West; half the country told pollsters that they couldn’t afford to see a doctor if they fell ill. Today? The problems remain immense—rural conditions are grim, there is one general practitioner for every twenty-two thousand people, and people still go to hospitals with envelopes of cash to “tip” the doctors—but on the basic economic and philosophical questions, such as whether the country is stronger if everyone is insured, the debate ended years ago. Ninety-five per cent of the population now has some form of health insurance, according to the O.E.C.D. Out of pocket, patients pay for thirty-five per cent of China’s total health-care spending, down from more than sixty per cent a decade ago.

For that reason, Chinese readers strain to understand the political incentives for arguing against providing care. A piece about how the Supreme Court’s decision will affect the campaign, broadcast on China National Radio today, struggled to explain how rational voters could find common cause with a party that seeks to prevent them from gaining access to care. “More and more poor people in America will realize that the Obama Administration is truly on their side.” There was something quaint in its conclusion: “This whole debate over health-care reform is a good thing for the Obama Administration. For the Republicans, it’s a miscalculation.”

In the final minutes of his show, after the cartoon finished, Gao tried to unknot an even harder puzzle: How did American political discourse get to the point where it is today? On that one, no amount of American experience had prepared him for what he has encountered. “I once watched a debate between some important congressmen on TV,” he said. One of their arguments: “Why should we, people who work hard and pay our taxes, pay more taxes for those people who eat a lot and don’t exercise so that they can have health insurance?” He gave a bewildered look, and continued. The issue was deeper than health care, he explained. “In America, there is no unified idea that ‘democracy and freedom are great, and everyone should be equal.’ That’s not the case. When they talk about democracy, freedom, and equality, it is more like a kind of chess.”

Evan Osnos joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2008, and covers politics and foreign affairs.